How Specialty Blends Improved Throughput with a New End-of-Line Packaging System
- Candace Watkins
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
Nestled in the Texas Hill Country, the Tindol family runs Specialty Blends, a unique beverage company based in Dripping Springs. They are not a traditional winery. Instead of Cabernet or Chardonnay, they create wine that tastes like liquor, allowing beer-and-wine-licensed venues to serve cocktails like margaritas, mojitos, and daiquiris. They also manufacture Bob’s Pickle Pops and Pickle Potion, a fast-growing electrolyte pickle juice product for athletes, people with leg cramps, and fans of bold flavors.
Specialty Blends began in 1998 hand-filling bottles one at a time. Today, they run multiple high-speed packaging lines capable of meeting national demand. Their newest upgrade features a fully integrated tray packing and shrink wrapping system that dramatically increases throughput, improves efficiency and reduces downtime.
Inside the Specialty Blends Bottling Line
The tour begins with bulk PET bottles fed into an automatic unscrambler where they are oriented upright and moved toward a 24-head rotary filler. Each bottle is precisely filled, purged with a drop of liquid nitrogen to remove oxygen, then capped and sleeved.
From the accumulation table, bottles flow directly into the Polypack system, where one key advantage immediately stands out:changing lane width is as simple as turning a single adjustment knob.
For a company regularly switching between three bottle formats, this feature alone has saved hours of downtime.
Once collated, bottles enter the tray packer, which forms and glues trays in real time before sending them into the shrink bundler. The finished output is a clean, tight, distribution-ready multipack.
Specialty Blends now bottles over 150 bottles per minute.
The Challenge
To keep up with rapidly increasing demand, Specialty Blends needed a packaging system that could:
• Handle multiple bottle shapes and sizes
• Deliver consistent and secure tray bundles
• Support high-volume production with minimal downtime
• Reduce change part storage
• Fit within a tight footprint
• Integrate seamlessly with upstream filling and sleeving equipment
Solution
Polypack engineered a custom integrated tray packing and shrink wrapping system designed to meet Specialty Blends’ demanding production needs. Key features of this system include:
Automatic Product Collation to group products into accurate bundle configurations
Tray Packer with Nordson Hot-Melt Glue System to create and secure trays in real time
Integrated Printing Station for on-demand date and batch coding
Compact Shrink Wrapper for precise, consistent film application to create tightly packed bundles
Single Point Lane Adjustment System to reduce changeover time and minimize change part storage needs
Compact Overall Design to maximize valuable floor space and streamline operator workflow
Every component was built for reliability, ease of use, and consistent packaging quality across varied SKUs.
Client Feedback
"Polypack exceeded our expectations. Their team understood our production challenges and delivered a system that performs flawlessly every day. The flexibility, reliability, and packaging quality have made a major difference on our line." -Nick Tindol, Specialty Blends
Results
Since installation, Specialty Blends has achieved:
Lower changeover times and simplified operations
Increased line speed and improved production efficiency
Consistent, high-quality tray bundles with excellent film presentation
Reduced storage and maintenance costs due to fewer change parts
Reliable uptime with intuitive controls and robust engineering
The system’s performance, adaptability, and seamless integration have allowed Specialty Blends to scale production confidently while maintaining exceptional packaging quality.
Interested in a solution tailored to your packaging line?
Contact Polypack to learn how we can engineer a system that works for you.
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